ALEXANDRE DUMAS, FILS COMPLETE CLASSICS La Dame aux UNABRIDGED

Read by Camélias Nicholas Boulton

Dumas’s novel became one of the great love stories from its first publication in 1848. The title role of the consumptive heroine and her ultimate sacrifice inspired actresses from Sarah Bernhardt to Greta Garbo, and led Giuseppe Verdi to write La traviata. In the hands of Nicholas Boulton, the story of passion and conflict is as fresh and moving as when it was first written.

Nicholas Boulton graduated from The Guildhall School of Music and Drama, winning the BBC Carleton Hobbs Award for Radio. He has since featured in countless BBC radio dramas, narrated a plethora of award- winning audiobooks, and died a thousand deaths in various video games. Film, TV and theatre appearances include Shakespeare in Love, Game of Thrones and Wolf Hall (RSC).

Total running time: 6:46:53 • View our full range of titles at n-ab.com

1 La Dame aux Camélias, or Camille 10:37 22 These simple reflections of Gaston showed me how… 8:45 2 Chapter 2 11:31 23 Chapter 15 12:50 3 Chapter 3 12:53 24 Chapter 16 9:04 4 Chapter 4 7:31 25 The time of the year when I was accustomed to join… 8:18 5 It was as if he guessed my desire, for he said to me… 8:13 26 Chapter 17 13:16 6 Chapter 5 13:02 27 Chapter 18 14:35 7 Chapter 6 13:37 28 Chapter 19 11:08 8 Chapter 7 9:18 29 Chapter 20 10:49 9 A moment later, my friend returned. She is expecting… 8:48 30 Chapter 21 13:55 10 Chapter 8 11:42 31 Chapter 22 12:52 11 Chapter 9 8:47 32 Chapter 23 9:44 12 ‘So,’ said she all at once, ‘it was you who came to...’ 7:52 33 ‘I should be lying if I said I think no more about her...’ 7:10 13 Chapter 10 9:22 34 Chapter 24 10:51 14 I had gone too far to turn back; and I was really… 9:25 35 She pressed my hand without a word, for tears still… 11:19 15 Chapter 11 9:10 36 Chapter 25 7:27 16 She took off her hat and her velvet cloak and threw… 9:30 37 ‘You are young, beautiful, life will console you...’ 8:37 17 Chapter 12 7:58 38 Chapter 26 8:12 18 As for me, I no longer remembered how I had lived… 7:19 39 This morning Monsieur H. called. He seemed much... 11:11 19 Chapter 13 9:22 40 February 18th. MONSIEUR ARMAND: Since the day... 8:06 20 At last the count came out, got into his carriage… 9:46 41 Chapter 27 3:37 21 Chapter 14 9:04

Recorded at The Soundhouse, London. Produced by Neil Rosser Edited and mastered by Timothy Brown. Executive Producer: Anthony Anderson ℗ 2020 Naxos AudioBooks UK Ltd. Artwork © 2020 Naxos AudioBooks UK Ltd. Booklet and cover design: Hannah Whale, Fruition – Creative Concepts, using an illustration by Eusebi Planas (1833–1897) in La dama de las camelias (1880), courtesy of Mary Evans Picture Library. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. UNAUTHORISED PUBLIC PERFORMANCE, BROADCASTING AND COPYING OF THIS RECORDING PROHIBITED

Total running time: 6:46:53 Catalogue no.: NA0465 ISBN: 978-1-78198-325–6

1 ALEXANDRE DUMAS, FILS La Dame aux Camélias

Alexandre Dumas was born in 1824, the illegitimate son of Dumas adapted the novel for the stage the following year, Catherine Lebay, a dressmaker, and Alexandre Dumas, the author but he had to wait three years before the censors allowed its of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo. His performance. During the wait, Dumas wrote a clutch of novels parents lived together for only a short time after his birth, but his with little success, but the production of La Dame aux Camélias at mother gave him a loving and secure home. Later his father sent the Vaudeville in 1852 made his reputation. The play was a smash him to boarding school; Dumas fils was very unhappy there and hit, and the next year Verdi was inspired to capture the passion described his experiences in L’affaire Clémenceau (1866). of Armand and Marguerite, renamed Violetta, in his opera, La Dumas fils left school in 1840 and went to live with his father, traviata. who was then at the height of his fame. He treated his son as In 1855 Dumas’s Le Demi-Monde was the first play to tackle a contemporary and together they threw themselves into the a social problem – in this case, the effects of prostitution on delights of bohemian society. marriage. Dumas married Princess Narishkine, a Russian, and had It was during this time that Dumas fils became the lover of two daughters, but later lived apart from his wife. In 1857 Dumas Marie Dupleissis, a well-known courtesan who always wore white was made a member of the Académie Française. He published camellias. She had come to Paris as an uneducated, penniless pamphlets on divorce and prostitution, which were influential in country girl and had become the mistress of a string of men the revision of the French marriage laws. ascending from restaurateur to duke. She was swept off her feet In 1895 Dumas’s wife died and he married Mme Regnier de by the refreshing youthfulness of Dumas’s passion but their liaison la Brise, whom he had loved for many years. But in November of finished in 1846 just six months before Marie died of tuberculosis the same year Dumas died of meningitis. Although his output of at the age of 23. plays and essays was prolific, it is for La Dame aux Camélias that Dumas had written Les Aventures de Quatre Femmes et d’un Dumas is remembered. He was so moved by Sarah Bernhardt’s Perroquet in 1847, but it might as well have concerned a dead performance in the title role in 1884 that he gave her an early parrot for all the interest it aroused. The success of his second novel, edition of the book and a letter he had written to Marie Dupleissis La Dame aux Camélias, however, was immediate and sensational. expressing regret that their love affair was doomed. He had ended In the book – written in three weeks – Dumas romanticized his the letter, ‘Mille souvenirs. A.D.’ love for Marie, and Paris society, which had followed her career with interest, was keen to read what was clearly a fictionalised Notes by Lesley Young account by her young lover.

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